LAND, n. A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure. Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows that if the whole area of 'terra firma' is owned by A, B and C, there will be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to exist.

Generally speaking, no young tree is allowed to stand on copyhold land.

Edward Coke, 3rd Rep. 15; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 147. Hence the maxim, that "the oak scorns to grow except on free land."

The land was ours before we were the land's.She was our land more than a hundred yearsBefore we were her people. She was oursIn Massachusetts, in Virginia,But we were England's, still colonials,Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,Possessed by what we now no more possessed.Something we were withholding made us weakUntil we found out that it was ourselvesWe were withholding from our land of living,And forthwith found salvation in surrender.Such as we were we gave ourselves outright(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)To the land vaguely realizing westward,But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,Such as she was, such as she would become.

Robert Frost, "The Gift Outright", in Edward C. Lathem, ed., The Poetry of Robert Frost (1967), p. 348. Frost read this poem at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy (January 20, 1961).

The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air — it is a right proclaimed by the fact of their existence. For we cannot suppose that some men have a right to be in this world, and others no right.

Men did not make the earth. ... It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. ... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.

Will Rogers, as quoted in Land in America : Its Value, Use, and Control (1981) by Peter M. Wolf, p. 6

Unsourced variant: Buy land, they aren't making any more of it.

The first man who, having fenced off a plot of land, thought of saying, 'This is mine' and found people simple enough to believe him was the real founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders, how many miseries and horrors might the human race have been spared by the one who, upon pulling up the stakes or filling in the ditch, had shouted to his fellow men: 'Beware of listening to this imposter; you are lost if you forget the fruits of the earth belong to all and that the earth belongs to no one.'

A slogan popularized by Emiliano Zapata, quoted in Tierra y Libertad (1920) published by Imprenta Germinal; further attributed to Zapata in works in the 1930s and later, including, Without History: Subaltern Studies, the Zapatista Insurgency, and the Specter of History (2010) by José Rabasa, p. 122, where the influence of the anarchistRicardo Flores Magón on its development is also attested.

La tierra es de quien la trabaja con sus manos.

The land belongs to those who work it with their hands.

Emiliano Zapata, quoted as a slogan of the revolutionaries in Shirt-Sleeve Diplomat (1947) Vol. 5, p. 199, by Josephus Daniels, and specifically attributed to Zapata by Ángel Zúñiga in 1998, as quoted in Mexican Social Movements and the Transition to Democracy (2005), by John Stolle-McAllister.